Ubuntu 17.10 Reaches End of Life — Current Users Should Upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

As of today’s date, July 19, 2018, Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) has reached its end of support from Canonical, the parent company of Ubuntu… This means that systems running Ubuntu 17.10 will not continue to receive security and maintenance updates from Canonical…

If you’re still running it, you are highly encouraged to upgrade to the next supported version, (18.04) to continue receiving updates and support…

This brief tutorial shows students and new users who are still running 17.10 how to upgrade to 18.04… The upgrade process should be quick and easy, although it requires a reliable and stable Internet connection…

When you’re ready to upgrade, follow the steps below:

Ubuntu Desktop Upgrade

For desktop users, they may have probably already received notifications to upgrade… All they have to do is click the upgrade notifications to begin upgrading… If you haven’t seen the notification to upgrade, use the the steps below to upgrade…

Ubuntu 17.10 is a non-LTS release but will allow you to upgarde to 18.04 LTS release… To do that, open Ubuntu Activities Overview and search for Software & Updates… then select it to open.

When it opens, select the Updates tab and validate that Notify me of a new Ubuntu version is set for any new version… If not, select it and save your changes..

Then select the Developer Options tab and select to box to enable Pre-released updates (artful-proposed)

Before upgrading Ubuntu you should always make sure the desktop is updated with the latest packages… This is the standard process. To update Ubuntu packages, open the Activities Overview again and search for Software Updater, then select to open it…

When it opens, click the button to Install Now to install all available updates before upgrading…

Doing that should install packages that are waiting to be upgraded… After that, you can then begin upgrading to the latest Ubuntu desktop versions…

Upgrading Ubuntu

Now that Ubuntu is updated, press Alt + F2 on your keyboard to open the run command box… this box allows you to run Ubuntu commands… when it opens, type the commands below to press Enter.

update-manager -c

After that, it should open the upgrade wizard to upgrade Ubuntu

Click the Upgrade button to begin the wizard… follow the on-screen instructions and continue

When everything is ready, click the Start Upgrade button

Depending on the speed of your Internet, then shouldn’t take too long.. after Ubuntu is upgraded, you should be able to restart and start using the new Ubuntu!

Ubuntu 17.10 Server Upgrade

For those upgrading Ubuntu server, the steps below should be good…

Before upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04, you should first update the current 17.10. It’s recommended to update/upgrade all installed packages before upgrading. To update Ubuntu, connect to the server and run the commands below:

sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade && sudo apt autoremove

Install Ubuntu Update Manager

After updating Ubuntu 17.10 server, run the commands below to install update-manager-core if it is not already installed.

sudo apt install update-manager-core

Then open the update-manager configuration file and make sure the Prompt line is set to lts

sudo nano /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

Confirm that the Prompt is equal normal

# Default behavior for the release upgrader.
[DEFAULT]
# Default prompting behavior, valid options:
#
# never - Never check for a new release.
# normal - Check to see if a new release is available. If more than one new
# release is found, the release upgrader will attempt to upgrade to
# the release that immediately succeeds the currently-running
# release.
# lts - Check to see if a new LTS release is available. The upgrader
# will attempt to upgrade to the first LTS release available after
# the currently-running one. Note that this option should not be
# used if the currently-running release is not itself an LTS
# release, since in that case the upgrader won't be able to
# determine if a newer release is available.
Prompt=normal

If not, change it to normal and save the file.

Perform Ubuntu Server Upgrade

Now that your system is ready, run the commands below to begin Ubuntu upgrade to the latest development release..

Do you want to start the upgrade?
1 installed package is no longer supported by Canonical. You can
still get support from the community.
2 packages are going to be removed. 64 new packages are going to be
installed. 394 packages are going to be upgraded.
You have to download a total of 234 M. This download will take about
1 minute with your connection.
Installing the upgrade can take several hours. Once the download has
finished, the process cannot be canceled.
Continue [yN] Details [d] y

Wait for all the newer packages to be downloaded… this may take a while depending on your internet connection speed. After all packages are downloaded, your system will begin upgrading immediately….

Once new packages have finished installing, you’ll be asked whether to remove obsolete packages. Type y here. If you have a system that you have customized, you may wish to enterd to view the list… just in case you may need to reinstall..